


They Say It's Your Birthday

by lizimajig



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Birthday, F/M, Fluff, The Scottage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 10:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12130167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizimajig/pseuds/lizimajig
Summary: Sometime in the future, Fitz has the best birthday he could  ask for.





	They Say It's Your Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> Don't own, etc. This is for the birthday wish challenge from Team Engineering at the FitzSimmons Network on tumblr. The prompt I originally picked up was "the cottage in Perthshire" but it became an amalgam of a couple different prompts on our list. :) Enjoy, be sure to brush your teeth.

Fitz had never been a morning person. It was just not a thing that happened. Even though society dictated that he be a functioning adult at an absurd hour, it doesn't mean he had to like it, or do it unaided. Coffee and caffeinated tea were not options, they were necessities. He had never been a morning person, but having children had trained him to be able to pull himself into wakefulness at a moment's notice.

Like when he heard what sounded like a pan crashing onto the kitchen floor. His eyes flew open, he started, and his heart was beating just a little bit faster. Jemma also started awake, her head lifting from his chest. She seemed to have slowed, taking just an extra minute to come around to full consciousness. "Maisie remembers she's not to use the stove, right?"

Jemma sighed and blinked heavily. She didn't answer right away, and in fact looked as though she might not remember. "Yes?" she guessed.

"… Right, I'll go check, shall I?"

"No, no." She stops him from sitting up, then leans down to kiss him on the mouth. "Go back to sleep. 40-year-olds need all the rest they can get."

He smirked, and turned over as Jemma pushed herself up. She was probably expecting some indignant remark in return, but he certainly wasn't going to argue when the opportunity for a little more shut eye was handed to him.

\---

Although he only slept another hour or so, it was enough that when he next woke, he got up and out of bed. The house was quiet, and he snuck downstairs and into the den. There, Jemma was resting comfortably on the couch with Maisie, their oldest, curled up beside her, head in her lap. "Did she decide sleep was more important?" he asked.

Jemma smiled. "I managed to convince her that breakfast at the break of dawn might not be the best way to say happy birthday," she explained, brushing Maisie's hair away from her eyes.

"Poor lamb," he joked, coming to sit at the other end of the couch. He gently tickled her feet, first getting a twitch, then a low whine, then a quiet, "Da, stop!"

He laughed, and then composed his expression into a more serious one. "Sorry, monkey," he told her. Her brown eyes were barely open, and even had they been, she was rubbing sleep from them. "What were you going to make?"

"Waffles," she mumbled. "I wanted pancakes, but I was gonna use the toaster 'cause I can't use the stove."

"That's good thinking," he said. He wanted to marvel at her ability to find the loophole in any rule they gave her, but she'd been doing it all six years of her life. "How about we wait until Jamie wakes up, and then we'll have pancakes?" 

"Okay," she agreed serenely, eyes closing again.

It was only a scant few minutes later, but the quiet babble of their toddler drifted down the stairs. "Speak of the devil," Jemma said, and nudged Maisie. "Go curl up with your Da, while I go get your brother."

She wordlessly complied, flipping to the other side so she could snuggle up to Fitz. Her little body was still warm and heavy with sleep, and her quiet sigh was the sweetest sound he could imagine. He twisted one of her curls around his finger, and smiled.

\---

"Don't run too far ahead!" Jemma called as Maisie ran in front of them on the road and Jamie charged forward on his short legs after her. 

"We can see them, they'll be fine," Fitz told her. 

"All it will take is one misstep and we're dealing with a scraped up chin and a crying child," Jemma replied. "I just want to avoid it if at all possible."

"Uptight one, you are," he commented, taking her hand in his. 

She huffed, in what he was pretty sure was mock indignance. "Fine. You can deal with consoling the injured child, then."

"Very well." That was usually his role anyway; Mum could heal your hurts, and Da could distract you and slip you biscuits after, even after she told him not to. "So why all the secrecy about walking into town?"

"Well, we did finish all the eggs with pancakes, and if you want cake…"

"Say no more," he said, and looked up as Jamie dashed back to them, something in his hand. "What you got here?"

"Here," he said, depositing a small rock in Fitz's hand. 

"Oh, thank you," he said, looking at it as Jamie ran back to where his sister waited. "I got a rock," he told Jemma.

"Lucky you." She smiled. "Maisie's dead set on the cake being a surprise. So don't tell her you know."

He grinned. Maisie had been on a surprise kick lately. "That's adorable."

"Yeah," she sighed, and looped her arm through his. "Shall I make my cake ahead of time, so you and Maisie don't make my kitchen a disaster area?"

"Don't be silly," he replied. "I'm perfectly capable of buying one from the store."

They both laughed, and Jamie was running back to them again. "What now?" he asked him.

"Pwesent!" he said, handing his father another stone. 

"I'm apparently getting rocks," Fitz told Jemma, showing off his two 'presents'. 

"That's nice. I'm quite jealous, actually."

"Don’t worry, I'll share." He leaned over and kissed her temple.

\---

"Again!" his little boy giggled. " _Again!_ "

Fitz groaned, putting his face down on the mattress. "Mate, I'm supposed to be putting you down for a nap. Your mum'll string me up if you don't sleep."

"No, up," Jamie instructed, patting Fitz's face.

"It's my own fault for winding you up, isn't it?" he asked rhetorically.

"Mm yeah," the boy said.

"Don't sass your Da," Fitz told him, though the growing smile ruined any sternness he might have had going for him. Jamie giggled in response. "You gotta take a nap, mate."

"Mm." He actually seemed to be considering it, although if Fitz knew that face it was going to be followed up with-- "Again?" 

"Oh, all right." He covered his face. "Where's Jamie?" 

Jamie was practically vibrating with silent giggles, and then they became not so silent. "Where's my Jamie?" he asked, and Jamie tried to keep quiet. "It's dark in here, I wonder where -- there he is!" he cried, pulling his hands away to reveal the sight of his son. Jamie screamed with laughter, ducking his head onto the mattress, and Fitz couldn't help but laugh, too. 

"Boys!" came a shout up the stairs, and Fitz hurriedly shushed the laughing toddler -- although admittedly, it was a poor job of it. "Make sure we're napping during naptime!" Jemma completed.

"Way to go, getting me in trouble with your mother," Fitz grumbled jokingly, and lifted Jamie onto bed with him. "Come on, lay down, there's a lad."

\---

"You have to close your eyes," Maisie told him from the other side of the dining room table.

"Like this?" Fitz asked, putting his hands over his eyes, but peering at her through the fingers.

She rolled her eyes. "Mummy, will you make him do it right?"

It was a heroic effort, but Jemma managed to keep a smile off her face. "Fitz, listen to Maisie so you can have your surprise," she said, giving him an exaggerated wink. 

He obliged, covering his eyes completely. "Okay, I'm ready," he said.

"Where Da?" Jamie said, laughing. 

"Hey, quiet you," Fitz admonished him. "You'll get us in trouble again, you wee fiend."

"Why don't you get the light, darling?" Jemma asked, and the light goes off, leaving them in dimness. 

"Can I open my eyes now?" he asked.

"No, not yet!" Maisie ordered. He hears Jemma return, with the unmistakable scent of a match lingering, and he senses Maisie at his side. "Okay, now!" she said, tugging on his elbow. 

He brought his hands away from his face, and gasped at the cake in front of him. The white-frosted sheet cake declared HAPPY BIRTHDAY DA in bright green frosting, and had candles lit in one corner. "Amazing, how did you know I wanted cake?" he asked her.

Maisie just smiled, and he observed, not for the first time, that she looked more and more like Jemma every day -- especially in her smile. "You have to make a wish, da."

"Wishhhh," Jamie agreed, turning over his sippy cup onto the tray of the high chair. He wasn't going to fit in the chair much longer, he'd be at the table in the booster with the rest of them. 

"Okay, okay," he said, pretending to consider it. Then he took a breath, and blew the candles out.

\---

"So what'd you wish for?" Jemma asked, when Jamie and Maisie were finally in bed that night, and the cottage was quiet except for the two of them; theirs the only light showing in the dark countryside.

"Cake," he joked with her, answering Daisy's e-mail quickly on his tablet -- they would call her tomorrow, have a good call, make plans. She was making time to visit them at Christmas, and it would be very welcome.

"Well good on you, instant gratification," she said. She was rubbing lotion into her arms, and its scent filled the bedroom. "But really."

"Really?" he said.

"Really really."

He shrugged. "Nothing."

"Nothing at all?"

He shrugged again. "I have everything I want. You, the kids. This house. Our life. It's all been… more than anything I could ask for."

Jemma smiles at him. "That's terribly cheesy of you to say," she said. 

"Yeah, but it's true," he said, setting the tablet aside. "I love you. And I love our life. We came here, after -- and we just…" Sometimes it was still too much, to think of how they arrived here, and how things were now -- he never would have thought it possible.

She understands, smiling gently. She leans into him and kisses him gently, lingering close. "Happy birthday, Fitz."


End file.
